When the herders, therefore, rounded up the sheep and started
them moving south, the Happy Family speedily rebelled against
that shuffling, nibbling, desultory pace that had kept them long,
weary hours in the saddle with the other band. But it was Irish
who first took measures to accelerate that pace.
He got down his rope and whacked the loop viciously down across
the nearest gray back. The sheep jumped, scuttled away a few
paces and returned to its nibbling progress. Irish called it
names and whacked another.
After a few minutes he grew tired of swinging his loop and seeing
it have so fleeting an effect, and pulled his gun. He fired close
to the heels of a yearling buck that had more than once stopped
to look up at him foolishly and blat, and the buck charged ahead
in a panic at the noise and the spat of the bullet behind him.
"Hit him agin in the same place!" yelled Big Medicine, and drew
his own gun. The Happy Family, at that high tension where they
were ready for anything, caught the infection and began shooting
and yelling like crazy men.
The effect was not at all what they expected. Instead of adding
impetus to the band, as would have been the case if they had been
driving cattle, the result was exactly the opposite. The sheep
ran--but they ran to a common center.
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